Far-right National Front party leader Marine Le Pen today applauded the actions of the anti-gay marriage activist who committed suicide this afternoon at the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral.

The suicide was hailed as a political gesture by Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front. "All respect to Dominique Venner whose final, eminently political act was to try to wake up the people of France," Le Pen said on Twitter, signing her initials to indicate that she had written the entry personally. Le Pen's far-right party, running primarily on an anti-immigration platform but which also opposes French government efforts to legalize gay marriage, is the third-most popular in the country.

Le Pen finished third in last year's presidential election, taking 18% of the vote. One wonders how many followers of Manif Pour Tous belong to the National Front. (Tipped by JMG reader Nicholas)

RELATED: Marine Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who headed the National Front from 1972-2011, has been convicted of anti-Semitic and racist hate speech crimes multiple times. In 1987 he was fined 1.2M francs for denying that the Nazis used gas chambers. The elder Le Pen has run for the French presidency five times and finished fourth in 2007.